Halo 3 has reached one million pre-orders in North America alone, making it the fastest selling pre-ordered game in history. Over a month before it's set to hit shelves, the eagerly-awaited title has set a new precedent for the video games market, according to Microsoft.
"What we've experienced is nothing short of phenomenal," …

COMMENTS

Legendary...

Amazingly, the Legendary edition appears not to contain all the extras from the Limited, so you pay a considerable premium for the plastic helmet-shaped case. The Limited definitely seems to be the most interesting version - which if there are this many pre-orders, makes me suspect it won't be all that limited ;)

...on par with major event films

What Microsoft seem to have forgotten is that some major event films, even those with huge marketing budgets and tie ins with things like burgers, soft drinks etc. turn out to be total turkeys.

Also is 1 million pre-ordered copies in the US really pushing "video game entertainment into the forefront of mainstream culture"? The last Harry Potter book took 1.4 million in US pre-sales - from amazon.com alone. Amazon's worldwide pre-sales were 2.2 million

Edition-Mania

Yawn. It is just another pathetic shooter, with the added bonus of your ears being filled with the pointless babble and slur of 3m angry adolescents humping corpses. Also, I think it would be appreciated if Microsoft could spare us from spreading its edition-mania to games, as the world is drowning in superfluous crap already.

Halo 3

Three different versions ...

That will be the standard edition including a plastic CD case, a game CD and a manual for $60

The limited edition including a plastic CD case, a game CD and interactive XBOX 360 disc - like a computer game is not interactive enough but this one is specifically interactive and interactive with your XBox 360 too, just incase 300 hours of killing stuff isnt interactive enough for you. Maybe it interacts with your XBox 360 by getting jammed in the drive or something so you are forced to do something other than stare at a screen and give yourself RSI in your thumbs - You also get a book with descriptions of all the creatures you will find in the game - This is presumably so you have something to do with your day once your interactive disk has interacted with your Xbox 360 console and it now has the red halo of doom flashing on the front. Oh it costs $70

There is also the legendary edition wich comes with all of the above but also comes with a legendary DVDwhich has content relevent to the legendary edition - At $130 a pop one can presume it is a DVD containing footage of what the shareholders of Bungie did on their extended holiday in the Bahamas, a look around Bill Gates new private Jet and photos of all the development teams new exotic sports cars that they bought thanks to "Legendary" idiots spending $130 on a bloody computer game. Oh you also get a plastic helmet as well. One presumes that if you dont feel like a twat after spending $130 on a console game you can pop the helmet on a well and trully look one.

Grrr...

I'd like to play Halo 2 on PC, but as they're only releasing it for their Vista OS, it will be a long time before I'm in the market for either Halo 2 or 3. I don't like being blackmailed into buying an OS which, quite frankly, I don't want or need.

I'm with Finnbar on that one

I do not have a console at home, so I've put a blanket over my hopes of playing Halo 2 for years. Now it's out, but only on Vista. Sure, Microsoft, take me for a moron (we all know you do). Crysis is coming out on XP and Vista and you want to lure me to Vista with a game that's years out of date already ? Frankly, all that gaming I've done has not yet burned out my neurons, as you seem to think. Besides, DX10 is so artificial that my sides hurt from rolling on the floor laughing about it. You'll be putting DX10 in XP soon enough, I wager, especially given the dismal uptake of the latest bloatware you're desperately trying to shovel down our throats.

So totally outdated Halo 2 is finally on PC - albeit Vista only - and I'm supposed to get excited about Halo 3 ? That will be available on PC when again ? In 2015 ?

Man, 2015. I can only dream of what the sequel to Crysis will be by that time.

Halo 2 isn't outdated

Halo 2 on PC

Will install on XP, it doesn't need DX10 to play. If you want multiplayer however, thats where you will need Vista. But there are plenty of other, better multiplayer games on the PC anyway so I don't know why you'd bother anyway.

@ Ivan Headache

Ivan, let me give you a valid "pre" - how about pre-pubescent? Such are your comments that really add nothing to the debate...

Anyway, I'm kind of with the rest of you - nothing more it seems than massive hype to generate interest in a dull and monotonous product. If Microsoft are saying that 1m pre-orders is pushing "video game entertainment into the forefront of mainstream culture" then it really says something bad about mainstream culture as at last count there were something like 7bn people in the world and most of them get on fine without the slightest interest in Bungie, Halo or this continuous crap spewed out from MS.

My guess is that it's a desperate attempt to generate interest in a product that will pass out of the spotlight just as soon as it arrived - leaving all but the most hardened, desensitized morons disappointed that once again the hype has outweighed the actual product.